Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In supporting this motion today I would like speak about matters to do with doctors in Australia. We all know that health is one of the two big default issues in this country. If you ask people what their issues are, if they cannot think of anything else they will mention health and education. We can be sure of that. But specifically what they mean when they mention health is where the difference lies.

For some Australians it might mean elective surgery waiting lists; for others it might mean getting to see their GP when they want to or need to. It could be that they mention health because of a personal perspective or because they saw a media report suggesting a problem exists and they are concerned in a detached way. In any case, health remains one of those issues that is never far from the minds of Australians. It is also in the nature of Australians that we are critical and that we see fault within our health system. I believe that in overall terms it is better than any other nation’s health system; however, despite that, it is right that we always seek to make it better.

In the last two weeks I accepted the invitation of one of my local GPs, Dr Wood, to visit her surgery and speak with her and her staff—including her registrar and two student doctors. Dr Wood and her team are adding great value in the Alexander Heights community. I want to take this opportunity to thank her for the opportunity she gave me. I have become more aware of the situation for general practices, and matters relevant to this motion came up during our discussion. The positive impact of overseas trained doctors was one point of discussion. The ability to assess these doctors is critical, and many of our suburban practices would not be able to serve their communities without these doctors coming in under 457 visas. Dr Wood will soon have a new doctor, who is moving from Northern Ireland to Perth with her husband and, I believe, four children. This is very good news for the patients of Dr Wood’s practice. I hope that it all works out well and that this doctor and her family make Australia their home permanently.

As I have alluded to already, Dr Wood is not the sort of person who just recruits overseas; she also helps in the training of student doctors and newer doctors. One of the issues I want to raise today is directly relevant to this motion. It relates to how doctors are trained and how they move through our system. Many members would be aware that upon graduation medical students must take up an internship for a year in order to finally qualify as medical practitioners before taking a registrar position. But in 2012 there will be a problem with the number of intern positions available due to the increasing number of graduates. I have been told that there will not be a guaranteed intern position for graduates of Australian universities who are overseas students. Surely this problem can be addressed; the last thing we want is for graduates of our medical schools to go back overseas immediately. These are the sorts of people who we definitely want to stay here—we want to make sure our health system is the beneficiary.

Residents in our local communities deserve the right to access doctors and medical treatment reasonably close to where they live. In the rapidly growing northern suburbs of Perth—including in my electorate of Cowan—it is a challenge to keep pace with the heavy demand for services. As I have already mentioned, without the services offered by doctors coming into Australia on 457 visas many GPs and specialists in many parts of Australia would not be able to keep up with the demands of local communities. I particularly endorse the views expressed tonight regarding specialists. Whilst we do not have a significant specialist population within Cowan—we are just across the road from the Joondalup Health Campus, and that is where a lot of the northern suburbs specialists are—these matters are extremely relevant. I certainly think the government should think through the ramifications of any revocation of 457 visas for doctors who have been deregistered because of problems, particularly the question of all problems with the pre-employment structured clinical interview.

Government should allow sufficient time for a proper thorough review of these cases and ensure there is a clear process in place that affords the opportunity for a reassessment. In overall terms, what is needed to meet the needs of primary health care in the outer metropolitan suburbs, as in my case, is to examine what can be done to remove the hurdles for existing practices to attract doctors. Neighbourhood general practice surgeries like Dr Woods’ are at the heart of successful primary health care. We should be very careful in being too hasty and we certainly should make sure that all potential doctors are given the opportunity to provide services within our suburbs.

See this speech in context